The Meeting on the Train
by Lady Fyo
Summary: The beginning of a never-finished story in which Bones and the Squints attend Hogwarts. Sorry


My_ name is Temperance Brennan. I am a witch._ I kept reciting this as I dragged my trunk through the train. I'm not- normal. No, I am normal. For a witch. I was still trying to figure out what had happened. Three weeks ago, a woman who introduced herself as Professor Minerva McGonagall had come to the house in which I lived in Kent with Mr. and Mrs. York. She told us that I was a witch and, now that I was eleven, I was ready to go to Hogwarts, where I would be trained in magic.

I found a seat that was empty and, with some difficulty, shoved my trunk up on the luggage rack. As I sat down by the window and watched as we pulled away from London, I thought about how I should have known I wasn't a Muggle (non-magical person). Strange things happened when I was a child. One time I had found a pile of bones in the forest by my house when I lived in Cardiff and had vaguely wished that I could rebuild it. To my shock, it rebuilt itself and I identified it easily as a cat.

Then there was the time I set all my schoolbooks on fire. That had been bad.

Or the time that I somehow replaced Mrs Collins' dog, Samantha, with a banana slug. That had been really bad.

I should have known, logically, that I was capable of using magic, but then again, I didn't believe in magic. And here I was, trundling off on a train with a hundred other kids to a school of magic in Scotland.

"'Scuse me, can I sit here?" came a voice. I looked up to see a boy with dark hair and eyes standing in the aisle with his trunk.

"Uh, sure." I said, getting up. I helped him put his trunk with mine overhead and then we sat down across from each other.

"I'm Seely." he said. "Seely Booth."

"Temperance Brennan." I said.

"First year too?"

"Yeah." I mumbled, smoothing down my skirt. I put my feet flat on the floor, hoping he didn't see my shoes.

"Muggle born or magic family?" he persisted in talking to me. "I'm a half-blood."

"Muggle born." I replied, guessing that it was the best answer. Mr. and Mrs. York were Muggles. So were the Collins. And the Taylors.

"Cool. Do you know what house you're going to be in?"

"House?" I repeated.

"Yeah, what house? Like Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin?"

"How do I choose?" I asked.

"You don't chose- it chooses you." Seely said. "so, are you looking forward to school?"

"Yeah." I said. "I suppose so. I like learning." I saw a couple of kids, one black-haired and the other with dark red hair, enter a compartment and then storm out a couple of minutes later, probably because they didn't like the two boys already there. I wished that I had gotten a nice, quiet compartment. Too much noise and movement out here.

"So what do you want to learn?" I asked.

"I want to learn about the Dark Arts. How to fight them." Seely replied.

"The Dark Arts?" I asked, intrigued.

"Yeah, curses, dark creatures, poisons, all that good stuff."

"Is there much call to fight the Dark Arts?" I asked.

"Oh yeah. The Ministry has a bunch of witches and wizards to fight evil. Like a police force."

"Interesting."

"So what do you want to learn?" Seely asked. At that moment, a woman came by, pushing a cart rattling with sweets and drinks.

"Anything from the trolley, dears?" She asked us.

"Sure." Seely said, digging in the pocket of his robe. "We'll take a couple of licorice wands and chocolate frogs."

The old lady exchanged the sweets for some coins and headed off to the other passengers.

"Here." Seely handed me a package of chocolate and one of the pieces of licorice.

"Thanks." I replied.

"So what do you want to learn at Hogwarts?" Seely asked, opening his chocolate.

"Well, Dark Arts Defense sounds interesting." I replied. "So does charms and transfiguration. I think I've already done some of that."

"Really?" Seely asked, his dark eyes growing big.

"Well, um, I turned a dog into a banana slug once," I replied. "And I built a skeleton out of just a pile of bones."

"Bones?"

"Yeah. I like bones. I read a lot about physiology and anthropology." I replied.

"You built a whole skeleton?" said an amazed voice behind me. I turned around to face a boy sitting on the seat behind me, alone. Light brown hair fell into a face with a few long cuts and a bandage on his forehead. He looked kind of ill, but sweet.

"Yep. I don't know how I did it." I replied. "Who're you?"

"My name's Remus." he replied.

"Nice to meet you!" Seely said brightly. "This is my friend Temperance and I'm Seely."

"Hi." Remus said. He seemed rather shy, like I felt. Maybe he was like me, in my own little world.

"Would you like to sit with us?" I asked. It didn't seem nice to leave him alone now.

"Oh, that's okay… you don't have to." He replied.

"Just come on over here, we have chocolate." Seely said. "And I'm pretty sure Temperance doesn't bite."

Remus stared at Booth, then he got up and sat down next to me. "You had me at chocolate." he replied. I handed him half of my chocolate frog (chocolate moulded in the shape of a frog.)

Now I had two people to talk to, and Seely seemed to like me.

Strange.

People don't usually like me.


End file.
